With greatest respect, I disagree strongly with the views of Lori and Sheila G regarding Ezra’s putative over-the-top aggression. Personally, I am sick of the Canadian and very catholic notion of tolerance and respect that took us to this revolting process in Vancouver, this politeness that insists that being respectful to anyone who wears the robes of officialdom is more important than protecting ourselves and our children and our neighbours.
Politeness is essential in the realm of common grace, but not in any absolute sense; not 100% of the time. When it comes to the point where a group of people are taking away something ineffably valuable — in this case, freedom of speech and thought, although it could be your relatives, in a cattle car — those people do not deserve respect, they deserve vilification, regardless of how mundane and bureaucratically composed they are.
Ezra wasn’t emotionally incontinent, he wasn’t firing off ad hominems, he was exasperated, laughing, and delighted to have a chance to show the rest of the world what sort of big-state crimes against conscience are occurring behind the polite evasions o polite-sounding bureaucrat.
I’d even go so far as to suggest that if people are turned off by Ezra, they are not parsing the significance of events. If his excitement and his truth-telling makes people turns people off, then they should join the LPC.
To me, criticizing Ezra’s communications at that press conference is a bit like saying to the guys in the Danzig Post Office in 1939 “You know, you’re on the side of right and everything, but you’re just turning people off when you discharge weapons.”
Go Ezra. What I saw there is a great Canadian moment, perhaps a pivotal one.
